The light of a single candle flickered in the shadows of a small, windowless room. The darkness was closing around the flame like two massive hands, enfolding the room in the cold grasp of eternity. Wax bubbled up and ran down the candle’s shortening length, pooling in thin layers on the small plate below it, relics of a past consumed in fire and lost in the mists of memory. The candle did little to light the darkened room, and did nothing to warm it. Soon, it would burn down completely, and the light would vanish, and only the darkness would remain.

Eldgam Bardsdotter blinked, closing his eyes for long seconds before forcing them slowly open again, as if to convince himself that he could. He stared at the candle’s flame, watching it dance, shrink, and grow on the black wick it encircled. He studied each chaotic motion of the fire, hoping to find some sort of pattern in its maddened movements. He found none. There was never any pattern. The fire was life, warm and wild, senseless and brief. Some flames were briefer than others, and some had burned for far too long.

The edges of Eldgam’s vision were blurred by far more than the shadows surrounding him. Eldgam was old. Ancient, in fact. He remembered little of his childhood, or of the plane he had been born to. He could no longer conjure up the faces of those he had played with as a boy, or those he had loved and hated as he grew into a man. He remembered the lines on his father’s brow, the smile on his mother’s face, and the colors of his sisters’ hair only in words, never in visual memory. He suspected his world had died long ago, but he could not remember where or what it was to know for certain. In the vastness of the Blind Eternities, his home had likely passed from all mortal recollection.

And soon, Eldgam Bardsdotter would join it.

He closed his eyes once again, and this time, he only barely managed to open them again. He continued to focus on the candle, burning down lower and lower with each passing moment. His eyes had seen so much. Eldgam had long ago lost count of his age. For so long, it was merely a number with no true relevance. It must have numbered in the thousands. There were planeswalkers who were older, he knew, and likely some whose years outnumbered his by as many as he had accumulated. He wondered if all of them felt the as he did.

Eldgam slowly reached up to touch his wrinkled face. His bones seemed to creak as he moved, and it took a few moments of resting his fingers against the side of his face to truly feel them there. His skin felt hard, and dry, and dead. He momentarily wished he had a mirror, but he soon dismissed the impulse. He had long since shed the vanity of his youth. For centuries, his face had existed as an eternal, unchanging constant. He was like a statue to the ancient gods, a handsome, unweathered monument of flesh, blood, and aether. He was forever. He was eternal. He was immortal.

And then, one day, Eldgam Bardsdotter started to age.

He didn’t know why. He didn’t know how. But one day, Eldgam noticed his hair was beginning to grey, his face was beginning to wrinkle, and his joints were growing sore. It seemed to happen so slowly that he began to wonder how long it had been happening, and how it was going to end. Eventually, his hair was white, his face barely recognizable, and his movement nearly impossible through the stiffness and the pain. His eyes were growing dull, and each day, they seemed to see less and less. Soon, now, the light would fade completely, and there was nothing Eldgam Bardsdotter could do.

The old man pulled his hand away when he suddenly felt a tear slide down his finger. His breath caught in his throat, and Eldgam found himself wishing he still had his voice. He had lived so long, seen and done so much, and yet, as he stared at the dying candle, it seemed like it was far too little. There was so much left he wished he could do, and so much he would have done differently. He had seen countless planes in his life, and yet, looking back, it seemed as though he had never truly walked them. He had been like the aether, somehow beyond the material world, and never quite a part of it. He wondered now if any plane or any person would remember him after he faded into darkness. He wondered if any would record his name. He wondered if anyone would care.

And then, Eldgam Bardsdotter wondered nothing more as the candle’s flame died, and his eyes closed, and there was nothing but darkness.

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